The Vaults | Chapter 3

Summary

Noble: Episode 3 - "The Vaults"

Host/Author: Wavland
Release Date: August 7, 2024

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Introduction

In the third installment of Noble, titled "The Vaults," journalist Sean Raviv delves deeper into the harrowing events that transpired in Noble, Georgia. This episode uncovers the unsettling truth behind the Tri-State Crematory scandal, shedding light on the impact on affected families and the extensive investigation that followed.

---

Sheila Manus: A Personal Story of Loss

The episode opens with the poignant story of Sheila Manus, a resident of Murray County, Georgia, whose life was irrevocably changed by the loss of her parents at a young age. Sheila recounts:

"My mother died when I was 15. She had a heart attack. Three years later, my dad drowned. I was 18. But the thing of it is, I'd been raised that, you know, you don't just lay in Waller. You move on, pick up, make the best of it."
(02:27)

Despite these early tragedies, Sheila exhibited remarkable resilience, becoming an independent mother at 17 when her first daughter was born. Her strength was further tested when her husband, Ira, an Army Ranger diagnosed with Huntington's disease, passed away in 2000.

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Life with Ira: Love and Devotion

Sheila and Ira shared a deep bond rooted in mutual independence and love. Their relationship was marked by small, meaningful gestures, such as Sheila carefully preparing his favorite Hershey Kisses to avoid the noise that might disrupt his hunting:

"But he didn't want to make that rattling sound. So the night before, I would sit there and unwrap each of those individual Hershey Kisses and put them in a Ziploc bag for him."
(04:34)

Tragically, Ira's battle with Huntington's disease culminated in his death on August 9, 2000. Sheila fulfilled his wish for cremation, arranging a peaceful farewell atop Fort Mountain, believing she had honored his final requests.

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The Tri-State Crematory Revelation

A year and a half after Ira's death, in February 2002, Sheila discovers a disturbing inconsistency in Ira's death certificate, revealing that his remains were processed at Tri-State Crematory rather than the Atlanta facility she had trusted. This revelation shattered her sense of closure:

"I spread his ashes on that beautiful mountain where he shot his first deer. All the stuff with Ira's funeral and cremation, it's all done right now, I isn't so sure."
(09:12)

Compelled to seek answers, Sheila, accompanied by her children, travels to Noble. There, she is met with chaos as police and media swarm the area following the discovery of over 300 bodies on the Tri-State property.

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The Investigation Unfolds

Brent Marsh, the 28-year-old owner of Tri-State Crematory, faces immediate suspicion. Initially charged with five counts of theft by deception for failing to perform paid-for cremations, Marsh's situation rapidly escalates:

"The owner of a facility for cremating the remains of the dead in the rural northwestern Georgia town of Noble is under arrest after investigators found decomposing bodies all over the property."
(14:32)

As the investigation progresses, additional charges mount, ultimately leading to Marsh's indefinite detention. Governor Roy Barnes declares a state of emergency, highlighting the severity of the situation:

"The Tri State incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state. We need federal help."
(16:17)

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Community Impact and Public Outcry

The Tri-State scandal sends shockwaves through Walker County and beyond. Families who entrusted their loved ones to Tri-State are left grappling with uncertainty about the fate of their relatives' remains. Sheila expresses her anguish:

"I was angry. If you're given a job, you do that job. You don't have to do it. You do it. And I was just thinking, oh, my God, I can't believe it."
(34:32)

Online forums like Ezboard become hubs for victims to share their pain and seek support, fostering a sense of community amidst the turmoil.

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The Search for Answers

Special Agent Greg Ramey of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation leads the meticulous search across the sprawling 16-acre Tri-State property. The area is riddled with hidden graves, overturned vaults, and scattered remains, complicating the recovery process:

"We're looking around, seeing 30 plus bodies here, going, holy cow. We got, you know, our first concerns are we're hoping that it's contained to this. Back of your mind you're going, I know it's a lot bigger than this."
(20:06)

The discovery of large, backhoe-dug graves and overturned metal vaults within the Butler Building unveils the extent of the atrocity, with over 90 bodies found in just two days. The foul odor emanating from the aftermath underscores the gruesome reality of the situation.

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Unraveling the Tri-State Operation

Investigations reveal that Tri-State Crematory had been a low-cost, high-volume operation serving numerous funeral homes across multiple states since its inception in 1982. Brent Marsh's control over the cremation process allowed for deceitful practices, including the possibility of offering incorrect or nonexistent cremains to grieving families.

Sheila's discovery raises profound ethical and emotional questions:

"I was angry... All I can think about is Sandy's body laying in the shed with a bunch of other dead people. Four months rotten in a way, and no respect to him at all."
(32:51)

The community's trust in funeral services is deeply eroded as families confront the possibility that their loved ones were not treated with the dignity they deserved.

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Media Frenzy and Legal Battles

Noble, a quiet town without significant infrastructure, becomes the epicenter of national and international media attention. The unprecedented nature of the case strains local resources and demands a coordinated law enforcement response. Prosecutors anticipate hundreds of lawsuits and criminal charges against Brent Marsh and potentially other family members involved in the operation.

A notable moment in the investigation involves Special Agent Ramey's empathetic approach to Marsh:

"I said, 'I'm here to help you help me.'... He looked at me and said, 'understood.'"
(17:32)

Despite these efforts, public sentiment remains overwhelmingly negative, with widespread calls for justice and accountability.

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Conclusion and Looking Ahead

As the investigation continues, The Vaults sets the stage for the ensuing legal battles and deeper exploration into the Marsh family's involvement. The episode closes with anticipation of a formidable defense for Brent Marsh, hinting at dramatic courtroom confrontations in future episodes.

"The best damn lawyer in northwest Georgia... She was caught trying to smuggle a sword into the courtroom disguised in a cane."
(37:36)

Noble continues to unravel one of the most disturbing cases in the American South, questioning the ethics of death care and the obligations the living owe to the dead.

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Notable Quotes

• Sheila Manus:
  "My mother died when I was 15. She had a heart attack. Three years later, my dad drowned. I was 18. But the thing of it is, I'd been raised that, you know, you don't just lay in Waller. You move on, pick up, make the best of it."
  (02:27)

• Sheila Manus:
  "I would take me a cup of coffee and a rose, and I'd throw the rose in the woods and stuff, and I'd drink coffee with him. And to think that I was doing that over cement, you know, and just. I don't know. Just the biggest betrayal I've ever felt in my life."
  (33:30)

• Special Agent Greg Ramey:
  "I said, 'I'm here to help you help me.'... He looked at me and said, 'understood.'"
  (17:32)

• Billy Bob Thornton (Narrative Segment):
  "I grew up on a farm. You know, we had dead animals. They smell. But, okay. You kind of, you know, it's not that bad. This was just overwhelming. I mean, to the point where... You almost had to throw those things away."
  (27:04)

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Final Thoughts

Episode 3 of Noble masterfully intertwines personal tragedy with a broader investigation into systemic failures within the funeral industry. Through Sheila Manus's heartfelt narrative and the relentless pursuit of the truth by law enforcement, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the emotional and legal complexities surrounding the Tri-State Crematory case. As the story progresses, Noble promises to delve even deeper into the dark underbelly of this disturbing scandal.

Transcript

[Amica Insurance Representative]

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[Billy Bob Thornton]

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[Amica Insurance Representative]

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[Billy Bob Thornton]

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[Sheila Manus]

My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.

[Narrator]

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[Rosetta Stone Representative]

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[Narrator]

Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to Be to Be this podcast contains graphic descriptions of death and decay. Please listen with care. Campsite Media Sheila Manus came to know death at a young age. She was born in Murray county in northwest Georgia, and she was the youngest in her family. So she was spoiled as a kid, but she had to grow up fast.

[Sheila Manus]

My mother died when I was 15. She had a heart attack. Three years later, my dad drowned. I was 18. But the thing of it is, I'd been raised that, you know, you don't just lay in Waller. You move on, pick up, make the best of it.

[Narrator]

Sheila and her brother got jobs and bought a house together. She was 17 when she had her first daughter.

[Sheila Manus]

I was going to raise her. I didn't need a man. That's the way I was raised. Independent.

[Narrator]

Death shapes us all. It brings families together or rips them apart. Death can rob you of stability or grant you new freedom. For Sheila, the deaths of her parents intensified her independence, but also made her protective, loyal. In 1979, Sheila was working in hospice care While finishing her nursing degree. One of her patients set Sheila up with her son.

[Sheila Manus]

Oh, she kept her, oh, I've got this guy. Good looking son. You're just gonna have me. He's coming in. Well, he came to see her that day, and I thought, well, he's not bad. You know, I made some work with his clothes. I can fix that, you know?

[Narrator]

His name was Ira, and he was an army ranger. He had brown hair and blue eyes and a slight hint of a mustache. And Sheila thought he was cute. Just like Sheila, Ira had become fiercely independent after a tough childhood. But their mutual independence added up to good chemistry and good dates. Sheila and ira got married six weeks after they. Sheila was 19 and Ira was 22. They had two children and raised them together with Sheila's daughter in a house in Chatsworth. Ira got a good job at the Department of Transportation, and Sheila was soon able to stay home like she wanted to. In his free time, Ira liked to deer hunt. He used a.30 06 rifle and later a muzzleloader that Sheila got him. She actually got him a kit, and he had to put the muzzleloader together himself. He told Sheila he liked it better that way because he built it. Ira was a Hershey Kiss nut. He would buy a huge bag of them to eat while he was sitting up in his tree stand watching for deer.

[Sheila Manus]

But he didn't want to make that rattling sound. So the night before, I would sit there and unwrap each of those individual Hershey Kisses and put them in a Ziploc bag for him.

[Narrator]

That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard, literally and figuratively. Oh, my God. That's so amazing.

[Sheila Manus]

Yes.

[Narrator]

To Sheila, Ira was the kind of guy worth unwrapping Hershey kisses for. They were happy together. But sometimes life comes down to a coin flip. And one day, it became apparent that Ira lost the toss. He was out hunting and traipsing through the woods, stepping over fallen sticks, crossing creeks, and he noticed that he had trouble keeping his balance. A few years later, he started having involuntary trembles in his limbs. Then they graduated to more severe tremors and slurred speech. In 1994, Ira was diagnosed with Huntington's disease. Huntington's is caused by a faulty gene. If a parent has it, there's a 50% chance their kid gets it before the disease takes your life, and it always does. It takes Away your balance, your strength, your speech, until you're just in bed and need help with everything. It's a nightmare for the patient, of course, but also for the people who love them. My own father had Parkinson's disease, which is similarly progressive and unstoppable. It killed my dad, but not before it nearly broke my mother, who had to take care of him as he forgot who she was, lost his ability to clean himself, and got violent with the people he loved most. Which is all to say that families that deal with physical and cognitive breakdowns are often in a battle against breaking down altogether, all while they're dealing with the question of why. Why did this happen to us? Ira was put in hospice care at home so he could die as peacefully as possible. By then, he was helpless to do almost anything at all.

[Sheila Manus]

So we made it through the 4th of July, and then that was about it. He was in bed after that, and it got to where he couldn't swallow, you know, and things like that. But I took care of him.

[Narrator]

Ira told Sheila that when the time came, he wanted his body cremated and his ashes scattered. He said there were too many cemeteries on this earth taking up too much room. He wanted to save space for the living. Sheila promised Ira that when he died, she would do everything he asked. One night, Sheila was in Ira's room, and he motioned for her to come over next to him.

[Sheila Manus]

And I got over there, and I squatted down, was holding his hands, and I said, what? And it took me a minute. I couldn't figure out what he was saying. And his brother said, he's telling you he loves you. And I said, are you saying you love me? And he nodded his head, yes. I said, well, I love you, too. And that was the last word. Dara said to me. We were just standing there, and I have prayed. If God never answers another prayer for me at all, if he would just let his heart give out. He took one big, deep breath, and then he sighed. And it was just so peaceful. And he didn't. Oh, my God, I've killed him, you know? But that was it. It was so peaceful. And we'd kept our vows to live. To us part.

[Narrator]

Ira died on August 9, 2000. He was 43 years old. He'd arranged his own cremation and funeral in advance. With the fanciest funeral home around. They didn't have their own crematory, so like a lot of funeral homes, they used a third party to do the cremations. Sheila's understanding was that they would take Ira's body to a crematory in Atlanta and then drive the ashes back up for the funeral. Ira had also picked out the music for his memorial service and wrote his own eulogy. The man had been well prepared to die. The funeral service was packed with friends, family, people from Ira's work. The funeral director gave Sheila a black plastic container a little smaller than a shoebox. Inside was a thick plastic bag holding what was left of Ira. Sheila and the family drove to the top of Fort Mountain where Ira had killed his first deer to spread his.

[Sheila Manus]

Cremains being, say, all the mountains. There's this rock wall and you can stand there and just look. And it was beautiful and the wind was blowing, so it was just, you know, there was a breeze and it just took him off over the overlook there and it was just so nice. And I thought, okay, I have done everything he asked me to. Now the end, you know, I've lived up and done everything.

[Narrator]

Sheila was relieved after spreading Ira's ashes. She had fulfilled his final wishes in every way. He told her to be strong for the kids. She stayed strong. He told her he wanted to be cremated and spread on the mountain, and she did that too. It wasn't the same as crossing off items on a grocery list though. Each step along the way, the funeral, the eulogy, the cremation, the spreading of the ashes, each step helped her grieve. While fulfilling Ira's wishes, Sheila also jump started her own healing. But soon something would interrupt her healing and the healing of hundreds of other families in northwest Georgia and southern Tennessee. A year and a half after Ira died, Sheila learned that Ira's body wasn't taken to a crematory down in Atlanta. He was taken to Tri State Crematory. From Waveland and Campside Media, this is noble. I'm SEAN RAVIV. Episode 3 the Vaults In February of 2002, it's been a year and a half since Sheila Manis husband Iraq, died of Huntington's disease. Sheila is still grieving. Ira isn't in bed next to her when she goes to sleep. He isn't around to play with their grandchildren. There are no Hershey Kisses to unwrap before Ira goes deer hunting. But Sheila has found some peace, some sense of moving on from Ira's death. One evening, Sheila is home by herself. She's got the music turned up while she vacuums, but she hears a knock on the door. It's her neighbor.

[Sheila Manus]

You can tell they're all serious. And she said, have you been watching the news? And I'm like, no. She Said, well, you might want to turn it down. So they turned my TV on for me. A disturbing story tonight from northern Georgia.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

Bones and skulls scattered across the property.

[Narrator]

Surrounding the Tri State Crematorium. Searchers will now have to go over 16 acres of woods on the crematory's property.

[Sheila Manus]

The bodies were dumped in woods and.

[Rosetta Stone Representative]

Storage sheds outside the crematory.

[Narrator]

Residents of the town of Noble are in shock. Tonight, the local coroner said, think of the worst horror movie you've ever seen. Imagine that. He said, 10 times worse. @ first, Sheila kind of shrugs it off. Ivar's body was sent down to Atlanta to be cremated, not somewhere around here. The funeral home that arranged it never mentioned a place called Tri State Crematory. But then she pulls out Ira's death certificate and sees that it does in fact say Tri State Crematory right there under place of disposition. Sheila isn't sure what to think. She got Ira's ashes from the funeral home. She spread them at the top of that beautiful mountain where he shot his first deer. All the stuff with Aira's funeral and cremation, it's all done right now, she isn't so sure. So Sheila and her children decide to drive to Noble. After all, it's not far, just a couple counties over. When she gets there, police and the media are already there in force.

[Sheila Manus]

I didn't really know what to expect this place to look like or anything, but they had the roads blocked off and all.

[Narrator]

What were you thinking you were going to do there?

[Sheila Manus]

I thought they would have information, you know, tell us what to do.

[Narrator]

The church is filled with families who, like Sheila, want to know what's going on at Tri State, what happened to their loved ones, bodies, what they do to find out more, who they can ask. It's chaotic and feels like a circus to Sheila. People want answers now. But the bodies have only just been discovered by police after the EPA agents found a skull on the property. It's not like there's a playbook for this kind of thing. It's completely unprecedented for just about everyone involved. A crematory that didn't burn the bodies. It's not something that will resolve itself overnight or even over weeks or months. It's just not an everyday crime. It's a spectacle sure to attract the attention of everyone in the county, the state and beyond. And nobody knows how to handle it at first. And it's not just the families that are confused. The investigators on the scene pretty quickly rule out necrophilia or some other disturbing way. The bodies Might have been used by Brent Marsh, the man who was running the crematory. But they still have plenty of questions of their own. For one, how the hell did so many bodies accumulate here without anybody noticing? They also have to figure out what laws were broken. They know a crime has been committed, but they don't know which one. So what are they going to arrest Brent Marsh for? In Georgia at the time, there is no law against desecration of a corpse unless the body is already buried. So grave robbing is a crime, but there has to be a grave first. For the most part, the bodies sent to Tri State have come straight from a funeral home or a hospital. So technically, Brent hasn't broken any specific law related to corpses. After much discussion, the district attorney settles on a fairly banal charge of theft by deception, A charge they might use against someone who commits insurance fraud or identity theft. They basically charge Brent with lying to his customers.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

The owner of a facility for cremating the remains of the dead in the rural northwestern Georgia town of Noble is under arrest after investigators found decomposing bodies all over the property.

[Sheila Manus]

Ray Brent Marsh has been charged with theft by deception for not performing cremations that were paid for.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

We do expect as further remains are identified, that there will be further warrants taken.

[Narrator]

Brent Marsh, the 28 year old Rotary club member, is arrested on a Saturday, the day after the initial discovery on five counts of theft by deception. Five, because that's how many bodies the police can identify straight off from a body wearing a hospital ID bracelet or somebody unseen just recognizing them. Greg Ramey, the special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the gbi, comes to suspect other members of the Marsh family of wrongdoing too. But at the moment, there's no clear evidence or reason to charge them. The News is on TVs all over Georgia and the country and abroad. Noble, this place without a single restaurant or traffic light is suddenly a topic of conversation around the world. You're looking at the aerials now, the crematory site here, northwestern Georgia location about.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

85 miles north of Atlanta.

[Sheila Manus]

As far as calls on the 1.

[Narrator]

800 number, it looks like we're getting.

[Sheila Manus]

Over 600 calls daily.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

We've had people call us as far as Canada. This is such an intense case of intense public concern and interest. We're making commitments today for a long term operation up here. It's a very expensive operation, ladies and gentlemen. The cost is going to be staggering, but certainly not to what it is to the families who have lost loved ones and have loved ones Here in Walker County.

[Narrator]

Everyone in Walker county turns their attention to Tri State Crematory. The director of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency estimates that the search and recovery of bodies will take eight months and millions of dollars. The FAA establishes a no fly zone over the property to keep away the media and the public. Georgia's Democratic governor, Roy Barnes visits Walker county and flies over the marsh property in a helicopter. He declares a state of emergency in the county. And in a letter to President George W. Bush, the governor says that the Tri State incident is, quote, of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state. Basically, he says he needs some federal help down here. Before the ink has even dried. On Brent's arrest warrant, Governor Barnes accuses him of, quote, depravity and says the state will use its full power to prosecute him. Brent makes bond after his first arrest on Saturday, and then on Sunday, he's arrested again, this time on 11 new counts of theft by deception. And again, Brent Bond's out of jail. And then Brent is arrested yet again a third time on 102 new counts. Special agent Greg Ramey is there and he speaks to Brent, hoping to get some information out of him.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

I said, I'm here to help you help me. And I said, you help me by telling me what's going on. And then I even spoke to him. I said, let me talk to you on a personal level. Just one Walker county resident talking to another one. I said, people are going to want answers. And I said, if you don't give them answers, if you don't talk to me, people are going to make up what they want to make up. They're going to make you out to be a monster that maybe you are, maybe you're not. But I said, without you giving them some direction to go, people are going to make up some pretty horrible things about you. And he looked at me and said, understood.

[Narrator]

This time when Brent is arrested, he doesn't get out on bond. He's kept in jail indefinitely.

[Amica Insurance Representative]

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[Billy Bob Thornton]

It out.

[Amica Insurance Representative]

For the place you've put down roots. Trust Amica Home Insurance. Amica Empathy is our best policy.

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[Narrator]

Over the first few days after Greg Ramey and other officers first discovered bodies in the Marsh family property, even as Walker county and the world really are descending on Noble, Greg stays focused on one a morbid and gruesome search for every body and body part on the property. Whatever state they're in, they have to be thorough because it's not like looking for a missing piece of jewelry. It's not a situation where you can afford to miss something. If a body is there, you have to find it.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

We're looking around, seeing 30 plus bodies here, going, holy cow. We got, you know, our first concerns are we're hoping that it's contained to this. Back of your mind you're going, I know it's a lot bigger than this.

[Narrator]

The property is big. Sixteen acres, including a bunch of buildings, trailers, cars, hearses, a lake, piles of junk, all sorts of equipment, old and new, and acres of dense woods. It's one of those properties where there's stuff everywhere. Not quite a junkyard, but some parts of the property have lots of junk. There are a thousand places a body could be hidden. So when Greg and dozens of other officers return to the Marsh property, they split up into teams of three. They carry radios, and after they find a body, they message a single GBI agent who's in charge of doling out the numbers.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

That way you don't end up with 2 body number 30 ones or 2 body number 25s or whatever. So one person issuing the numbers for the body. So when somebody say, hey, we've got a new body. Okay, your next Number is number 27. Photographs are taken. That body's identified just as body number 27.

[Narrator]

The GBI agent giving out the numbers takes notes about where the body is discovered. Someone photographs it from all angles. Medical examiners review the remains to determine how the person died, see if there's an easy way to identify it. There's a lot going on. They keep finding more bodies almost everywhere they look. The numbers soon reach 50, then 60, and they've barely started.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

So we had the little surveyor stake flags and we're marking bodies, and one of the guys says, hey, I'm out of, you know, I'm out of a Stake. Can you throw me one? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I take a thing and I pitch it to him. Well, it kind of falters out for you. And it literally lands and hits next to some bones and stuff we hadn't even seen. So, I mean, somebody made a joke. Dang. All you gotta do is just throw them up there and they're gonna land next to a body, you know, I mean, it was that. It was that crazy, you know, just finding that many.

[Narrator]

And those are just the ones sitting out for anyone to see. In muddier parts of the property, they find what appear to be dug graves, maybe mass graves.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

We're seeing large areas. An area 7 or 8ft 10ft wide by 7 or 8, 10ft long, circular, maybe, you know, the ground's caving in around it. It's crusted, got the broke crust edge. So we know that's a burial. You know, that ground's been disturbed. And so we mark that as that's a spot to dig at.

[Narrator]

They find at least eight graves like that, like the one that Gerald Cook, the gas man, saw in his delivery. The graves appear to have been dug with a backhoe. One of the pits is less than 90ft from Brent's house. It will take days to meticulously dig them up and recover the remains. They find caskets in random places on the property containing bodies. They sometimes find individual long bones like femurs, and they get their own numbers, too. Some of these loose bones will be paired with the rest of their remains later. They name the different recovery sites for ease, and some of them get charming nicknames like Sunday Surprise and Granny. On top of and around an upside down pool table that has been turned into a makeshift basket with a plastic tarp, they find the remains of what would turn out to be 23 people, most of them in advanced stages of decomposition. Some of the bodies are wrapped in sheets or still wearing durable clothing, allowing them to at least be separated. But most are loose, only rendered distinct by collections of seasonal pine needles and leaves. A few yards away, they find a pile of bones mixed with trash, rotten food, appliances, fencing, tires. But the most disturbing discovery on that second day has got to be the one inside the Butler Building. Greg is photographing 20 plus bodies on the floor of the building, along with a veteran crime scene guy named David. They start to smell something, something really bad.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

I mean, there was just this. Just this sickening odor. I mean, just one that makes you step back and go, I stepped away and I'm about to throw up.

[Narrator]

Greg walks around the building. But he can tell the odor isn't coming from any of the bodies he can see.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

But then you keep hitting or smelling that odor, and it just keeps hitting you. I'm like, david, what in the world? Where's that coming from? I don't know. And so we had noticed the night before. And in that day, there were about six or seven vaults, metal vaults in there.

[Narrator]

In addition to the crematory, the Marsh family also had a grave digging and vault business. The vaults are shaped like oversized caskets, but much heavier and made of concrete. They're put in the ground at a cemetery to protect a casket from rainwater, insects, and the weight of the earth. Greg sees half a dozen of these in the Butler Building sitting upside down on their rounded tops.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

So we're sitting there, and I kind of leaned over next to it and I. Oh, when I got close to it, I mean, the odor was just like I said, just sitting. And I said, david, lean over next to this. And he leaned over, he's like, oh, my gosh. And we kind of looked at each other and he said, you know what that means? And for a second, it didn't hit me. I said, oh, gosh. I said, there's bodies in there. He said, exactly. So we unscrewed a couple of the screws and popped that thing open and good Lord, we cleared that building. I mean, it was just immediate, just. And they were. The vault is maybe, well, say 7ft long, and it's maybe 36 inches deep. That was full of human bodies that were rotting, decomposing.

[Narrator]

Piled on top of each other.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

Yes, just piled on top of each other. And there was I think, maybe five or six of them in there that was like that. And we were just. Oh, no. I mean, literally such a strong smell that it almost invokes your natural reaction to vomit and throw up. It is that strong. Just. I mean, I grew up on a farm. You know, we had dead animals. They smell. But, okay, you kind of, you know, it's not that bad. This was just overwhelming. I mean, to the point where. And if it got on anything that you had on, I mean, we were having a suit up. We had Tyvek suits on and, you know, rubber boots and. And all this stuff. You almost had to throw those things away. You couldn't even put them back into your vehicle. You know, if you go to. If you had those boots on, you went and got in your vehicle, it was like, it's going to be there.

[Narrator]

The numbers are a bit fuzzy because some of Those found are just partial remains, but by the end of day two, they've got at least 90 bodies plus a smattering of loose bones. But Greg still has no idea how many more bodies there are or for how long they've been there. Some are clearly fresh, but a lot of them are skeletonized. Greg has to eventually figure out how long these bodies have literally, in some cases, been piling up. That isn't something that can be determined by searching on its own. To try and get some answers, he needs to speak to the funeral homes. Tri State Crematory is mostly a third party cremation business, which means that funeral homes in the Tri State area charge their clients for cremations and then contract the actual work of burning bodies to Brent Marsh. He usually picks up the bodies from the funeral homes or hospitals himself, takes them back to Noble and burns them in his furnace, and then brings the cremains to the funeral home. So Greg has his people start calling up nearby funeral homes to get lists of people who they sent to the crematory and find out just how many were sent there and to try to figure out if the funeral directors know what's been going on at Tri State.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

Because you don't know what the involvement is. You don't know if those funeral homes are in cahoots with him. Are they working alongside of him knowing this is going on, or are they totally blindsided by this?

[Narrator]

The answer comes back pretty quickly. The funeral homes are blindsided. Or at least that's what they say. Greg discovers that Tri State is the cheapest and most convenient crematory around. Tri State was serving dozens of funeral homes all across northwest Georgia, southern Tennessee, and even a few in Alabama. Brent would drive 100 miles to get some of these bodies and then 100 miles back just for a couple hundred bucks. He wasn't getting rich off this. The crematory was founded by Brent Marsh's father in 1982. And some of the bodies look like they could go back that far. They're skeletons. Brent only took over the business from his dad in 1996, 14 years later. And so this thing at Tri State that truly seems like it can't get even worse somehow gets even worse. What if Brent Marsh isn't the only one to blame for what happened? What if the whole Marsh family is involved? And what if the bodies have been buried and piled on the property not for years, but for decades?

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[Narrator]

Sheila Manus drives to Noble and the church near the marsh property where families are gathering, hoping to learn if Iros is among the many bodies found at Tristate. But she leaves without learning much except that everyone around her at the church is as confused and angry about this as she is. At least on that day. The police just don't have much to tell them, but the little information that has gotten out is already doing a lot of damage. Everyone in the area who's had a loved one cremated, a wife, a husband, a parent, a brother or sister, or even a child, every one of them suddenly has to check if their body was sent to Tri State Crematory. The crematory has had thousands of customers since it opened almost 20 years ago in 1982, and those who find on their relatives death certificates that they were sent to Tri State, like Sheila now, they have no idea if they've actually fulfilled their obligations to the ones they loved. They have no idea if the bodies were rather than burned as requested and treated with dignity and respect instead buried in a pit, dropped in a trash pile, or shoved in a vault with half a dozen others. On top of that, there's the issue of the ashes. Some of these bodies have been there for years. They were supposed to have been cremated. The families had funerals. Some of them spread the ashes. Some kept the ashes displayed in their homes in decorative urns. So what was in their urns? All of them were given something by the funeral homes and now they have no idea what. All the pain that came with these deaths in the first place, sometimes many years ago, for a lot of people, it's coming back. Families are in shock that loved ones sent to Tri State for cremation were dumped like garbage.

[Sheila Manus]

This is just his body, but it was my obligations to do what was right, and I thought I was doing what was Right. But these people were.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

We never anticipated or dreamed that there.

[Narrator]

Was a thought that her body would.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

Not be taken and disposed of respectfully and brought down here to. Lord knows what happened.

[Sheila Manus]

All I can think about is Sandy's body laying in the shed with a bunch of other dead people. Four months, rotten in a way, and no respect to him at all.

[Narrator]

Police find out that Brent had been giving some people real human cremains. But not everyone got the cremains of their loved one. Some got a different person's cremains and others got in place of ashes, cement dust, or lime dust. Sheila is stuck in this in between place where she doesn't know if the cremains she received from the funeral home were her husband's. She can't know because she spread his ashes on that beautiful mountaintop. And she'd even visit that mountain once a week.

[Sheila Manus]

I would take me a cup of coffee and a rose, and I'd throw the rose in the woods and stuff, and I'd drink coffee with him. And to think that I was doing that over cement, you know, and just. I don't know. Just the biggest betrayal I've ever felt in my life. Not just for me, but for my husband. My biggest problem was that I had promised Ira that I would do exactly as he stated. Okay? And then I would scatter his ashes. I thought I had done everything I was supposed to do and then come to find out, you know, I hadn't.

[Narrator]

When someone close to you dies, it can be one of the most significant events in your life. Something that changes you forever. And you get one chance to honor them, bury them, or cremate them the way they'd imagined, or in Ira's case, planned himself. If you mess it up, there's no second chance for Sheila. The whole situation just feels so dramatically different from what Ira meant to her. Someone who always did what he said he was gonna do.

[Sheila Manus]

I was angry. If you're given a job, you do that job. You don't have to do it, you do it. And I was just thinking, oh, my God, I can't believe it. In this diary, you know, Yeah, I was upset. There was, you know, I guess I led the posse on the forum, the website.

[Narrator]

You know, these are the early days of the Internet, way before Twitter and Facebook. But victims of Tri State post on an online message forum called Ezboard, Sheila among them, under the username sick and upset 2. She vents her anger and calls Brent Monster Marsh. She writes, he broke the laws of man and God and he will Pay. And it's not just Sheila. The message board lights up with anger towards Brent. A poster named Tricky Vicki writes, clara and the Marsh family have hurt too many people and nobody will ever forget it, no matter what they do. Another poster says, I think he deserved to rot in hell for what this man has done to everyone. But the message board is also a place where victims like Sheila band together and exchange messages of support, give each other updates on the investigations into their loved ones bodies. When Sheila posts about all the stress she's feeling, a user called it's too crazy writes, I know this month will be very difficult for your entire family. You need your strength, so please take care of yourself. Another day, a poster writes, there are days I come here because I have nowhere else to turn. We'll come back to Sheila and Ira later. Like a lot of the other family members, she would have to be patient to somehow sit around and wait until investigators like Greg Ramey do their job. Greg grew up in Walker county and lives there, is raising his kids there. So he's not just dealing with people he can remain cold and detached from. He already knows a lot of the families, the ones waiting to find out if their parents or sisters or brothers are lying in the dirt.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

At Tri State, there was so much emotion about this thing. Some folks had gone through a good healing process. Some folks had dealt with it. You know, their loved one had died of cancer, old age, car crashes, whatever. Some, it was very new, very fresh. Some hadn't dealt with it at all. You know, even though it was two, maybe three years, it was still just like ripping a, you know, a big scab off your arm and just tearing your heart back open.

[Narrator]

There's something like a mob who want to come after Brent. Even as prosecutors for the state target him. Others plan to sue the Marsh family for everything they've got. As the police continue to search for bodies, Brent will soon face hundreds of lawsuits and hundreds more criminal charges that could have him in prison for the rest of his life. But some sliver of hope for Brent comes in finding a lawyer. And not just any lawyer. The best damn lawyer in northwest Georgia. A guy who has no problem taking hits for his clients.

[Billy Bob Thornton]

She was caught trying to smuggle a sword into the courtroom disguised in a cane. So I may have been the first lawyer since the 1700s to get run through.

[Narrator]

That's on the next episode of Noble. Noble is a production of Waveland and Campside Media. Noble was reported and written by Johnny Kaufman and me, Sean Raviv. Johnny Kaufman is our senior producer Sierra Franco is our associate producer. Editing by Jason Hoke, Johnny Kaufman and Matt Chair Fact checking by Kalyn Lynch Sound design, mixing, scoring and original music by Garrett Tiedemann. Our theme music is La Lucha Esuna Sola by the band Esmerine. Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywin, David Eichler, Ashley Warren, Destiny Dingle and Sabina Mara. Jason Hoke is the executive producer at Waveland. The executive producers at Campsite Media are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff and Matt Scherr.

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[Billy Bob Thornton]

It out.

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